Such a shame, that the rights to publish board games based on the Starcraft universe passed from FFG to another company, just to become another Risk variant.

I still cannot understand this, but oh well, I am just a small consumer, what do I know...:soblue:

I think we were lucky not to have this happen with the original licence. The online game was massively dumbed down a few years back (which is why I stopped playing it) when Activision took over and now it's happening to the game.

Blizzard is all about cash maximization now over quality. A niche game will never make the money a mass market variant can. It's unfortunate but it has taught me to avoid licensed games in the future.

I really like the FFG boardgame, I played a game today, and at least I have a copy.

Since you're taking time to reply to this thread to make your point known without providing evidence, then you should also take some time and try to be objective.

Have you ACTUALLY played BW?

Perhaps you're mixing up 'more difficult' with 'better'. Increased difficulty does not equate to better. That would explain why you're taking offense to a true statement.

This following bit may not apply to you but it is true for many cases.

I understand that when a person identifies with something they often develop a strong attachment to that item, be it an author, a band, a sports team or even a video game.

These people are called fans, which is believed to be derived from the word fanatic. Fans are devoted to their specific object of interest for abstract reasons, like colours, town of residence, song, etc.

A PERCEIVED insult to the item in question is apparently an attack on the person's intelligence. (Just look what's going on in the A Few Acres of Snow forum at the moment if you want to see a good case study in progress.)

However, BE OBJECTIVE. BroodWar as a computer game is MUCH harder to excel at than SCII in any and all respects. It is not just a product of the mechanics or the UI although that plays one of the largest roles in the issue.

AGAIN: BroodWar is MUCH harder to EXCEL AT than SCII in ANY and ALL respects: Micro, macro, strategy, tactics, mobile army positioning, sieged army positioning, building layout for defense, and on and on...

I really enjoy SCII and I don't forsee going back to BroodWar for any extended period of time, but I'm not going to take it personally whenever someone brings up the fact that BroodWar is harder.

It's harder in dumb ways. Not being able to rally your probes to the minerals. Stupid. "Waaaah, they took out all this meaningless stuff that made my APM look l33t "

Lots of things along those lines.

BW was also the one and only expansion. When they get done with two more SC2 expansions, who knows what it will be like. And activision took over blizz a while back (2008), and SC2 just came out mid 2010. BW came out in 1998. Now I don't know when work started on SC2, but probably long before Activision bought blizzard and made them dumb down their game.

Halfinger wrote:

The online game was massively dumbed down a few years back (which is why I stopped playing it) when Activision took over and now it's happening to the game.

Two years after Activision bought blizzard SC2 came out. What he said makes no sense. He just talking crap like "old blizzard fanboys" do.

I think Activision has been bad for the overall quality of what Blizz has done, but the statement above is exactly what I said it was.

And they will sell a lot more copies of Risk: Starcraft than they did for SC:TBG. Just not to me

And they will sell a lot more copies of Risk: Starcraft than they did for SC:TBG. Just not to me

Monopoly and Risk are the opium of the poor. While I have no problem seeing even more of these games on the shelves with franchises, I just hope hypsters won't confuse the RISK SC with the FFG edition, wich is an awesome boardgame.

I'm glad I could snatch a copy of both Starcraft TBG and Broodwar expansion in time, it's truly an underrated gem and one that is not for the masses.

I will probably end up getting it, particularly if it comes chromed with awesome minis (perhaps they can be cannibalized into Starcraft: TBG?

Anyway, as far as Brood War being harder I would agree. However, I also agree that most of the reason it's harder is due to the shortcomings of the technology available to the developers when they made it. SCII is "easier" to manage because the UI is so much better and we have better programing to do the things we should have been able to do in Brood War. I think both games have equally as much skill required to play. Skilled players in SCII often times, however, impress me more with their creative tactics and back handed moves than I ever saw in Brood War.

Consider; Like StarCraft, Risk is about dudes on a map going forth and taking territory. It's so dead simple everyone knows how to do it. Every version of Risk released so far has had gameplay changes to it to make it fit the theme. Contrast to Monopoly, which is a cut-and-paste affair with minimal (if any) rules changes.

A counter point could be Risk: Halo wars, which doesn't add much to the game for halo-theme other than the commanders (and possibly team-play?). But there's a lot more going on in the Metal gear Solid version of Risk to suggest we might get some goodies in this one (Currency returns, special cards, commanders, a mobile continent). If MGS:Risk is willing to make changes like that I think there's some hope for SC:Risk.

OK fine, so the next Star Craft board game won't represent every unit, no modular board, no worker-harvester mechanic, and involves dice. But the way I see it the tradeoff is faster gameplay, faster learning time, and a wider audience who'll know what you're talking about.

Because at least you aren't rolling dice to see if you're going to buy Tarsonis or not. Where's the struggle in that? I feel sorry for the WoW players... they have a setting closer to Risk, but instead they get 'buy or pay?' on the board.

On a side note they did figure out how to put over 290 custom plastic pieces in the game for less than $50. That at least is an accomplishment very few others can do here in the designer board game world or do we just overpay???